The United States government has been helping businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency by backing programs, such as Energy Star. Energy Star is dynamic government/industry partnership that offers businesses and consumers energy-efficient solutions. For example, Energy Star published specifications for the maximum amount of power that a computer system should consume during particular states, such as a “hibernation state” and an “off state”.
In the “hibernation state”, the computer is operating in a power saving mode of operation in order to reduce power consumption. A computer system may be invoked to enter the hibernation state after a period of inactivity or upon a user invoking the computer system to enter the hibernation state. Upon entering hibernation, the computer system stores the contents of the system state information in a non-volatile storage unit, e.g., disk drive, flash Read Only Memory (ROM). During the hibernation state, the computer system consumes power to support the network subsystem. For example, the computer system may consume power to maintain activation of the network interface card. The network interface card may include logic configured to monitor a “magic packet” used to indicate to the computer system to “power up” to operate in the normal mode of operation. A magic packet may refer to a frame sent to the computer system in a network, e.g., local area network, that includes the destination address, e.g., address of the computer system, repeated a certain number of times, e.g., sixteen times, within the packet.
Similarly, in the “off state”, when the computer system is deactivated or turned off, the computer system may consume power to maintain activation of the network interface card. As discussed above, the network interface card may include logic configured to monitor a magic packet to indicate to the computer system to “power up” to operate in the normal mode of operation.
As stated above, Energy Star has published specifications for the amount of power that a computer system should consume during certain states, such as the hibernation state and the off state. Currently, Energy Star has specified that a computer system should consume no more than 2 watt of power during such states. Energy Star may later publish even more stringent specifications specifying that computer systems consume less than 2 watt of power during such states.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to reduce the power consumed by a computer system during the hibernation and the off state to comply with the Energy Star specifications.